Bottom line: Xiaomi's stock is probably oversold at current
levels due to selling at the end of a lockup period, but will
remain an underpeformer for at least the next 1-2 years until it
can prove its strategy of moving up-market has legs.

It's been a rocky week so far for smartphone wannabe Xiaomi
(HKEx: 1810), which is desperately trying to show investors it's
more than just a maker of cheap, low-margin products. The company
is getting set to unveil a new strategy to show it plans to wean
itself from the low-end phones that are its bread-and-butter, with
an upcoming an......

Bottom line: A US prosecutor's decision not to file rape charges
against JD.com's founder may bring short-term relief to the stock,
but the case still shows the importance of understanding the
unusual role Chinese founders play at their companies.

On this day after Christmas I thought I'd play a little catch-up
by weighing in on the controversial decision that saw a Minnesota
prosecutor decline to press rape charges against JD.com's (Nasdaq:
JD) founder and CEO Richard Liu. Following the big announcement at
the end of last week, there's been a minor follow-up as ......

Bottom line: The US case against Huawei's CFO is likely to end
with her release on technical grounds as part of a deal between the
US and China, though the company could still face punishment for
illegally selling US products to Iran.

It's a few days old by now, but I wanted to begin the new week
by sharing some of my thoughts on the recent blow-up involving
telecoms equipment giant Huawei's CFO, who was detained in Canada
at Washington's request. At this point I mostly want to give my
views on the politics behind this story, and also my take on how
things are l......

Bottom line: Huawei's new push into India looks like a smart and
well-timed move to take advantage of the country's emerging middle
class, and could help it take the global smartphone crown by the
end of next year.

As it creeps up on its goal of becoming the world's largest
smartphone maker, the controversial Huawei appears to finally be
waking up to the potential of the fast-growing India market. That's
the key takeaway from some Indian media reports last week, which
quoted a company executive saying Huawei is planning a major push
into an India market that it has l......

Bottom line: A major new campaign calling on Google to abandon
its plan to return to China's search market will add pressure on
the company to reconsider its decision, but is unlikely to succeed
unless the pressure grows significantly stronger.

If Google (Nasdaq: GOOG) CEO Sundar Pichai thought he could
quietly launch a new filtered China search engine without any major
backlash, he's quickly finding out otherwise. The search giant's
controversial plan to return to the world's biggest search market
is facing its stiffest resistance to date, in a frontal assault
coord......

Bottom line: China's drive to boost imports will benefit the
nation's big e-commerce companies with cross-border trade
capabilities, though such purchasing will still be a small fraction
of their overall volume.

It may be election day in the US, but here in China the focus is
decidedly on imports with the staging this week of a massive
import-focused expo in Shanghai. This particular event, officially
called the China International Import Expo, has big political
overtones, which I've looked at in a bit more depth in my weekly
column on doing business in China, for a......

Bottom line: Washington's punishment of a Chinese chipmaker
accused of stealing from Micron Technology is part of a savvy
targeted approach by the Trump administration aimed at spotlighting
illegal business practices by Chinese tech firms.

I thought I'd begin this Monday with a wrap and look at what's
ahead for a Chinese chipmaker called Jinhua, which fell squarely in
the crosshairs of Donald Trump's trade war with Beijing in a series
of breakneck developments last week. This particular case seems to
be part of a growing pattern that is seeing Trump pick his battles
......

Bottom line: Alibaba's vague road map in its latest chairman and
CEO annual shareholder letter is too far off to be meaningful, but
does chart its aspirations to change from its current form to
something more like an IT services company.

Alibaba (NYSE: BABA) founder Jack Ma and his heir apparent
Daniel Zhang have just laid out their vision for the e-commerce
giant in their latest annual letter to shareholders, and I have to
say it's at once very grand while also being quite short on detail.
There are some lofty goals revealed inside, headlined by a new plan
with some targets......

Bottom line: Haier's weak IPO under a new German program to
internationalize Chinese stocks owes to lack of awareness and thin
trading, and reflects challenges the new market will face in its
drive for recognition.

What if you threw an IPO and nobody came? That's what seems to
be happening for home appliance giant Haier, which has just made
the inaugural listing on a new Sino-German stock exchange aimed at
internationalizing Chinese companies. The program captured
headlines earlier this year when it was first announced that Haier
had been selected to make the inaugural......

Bottom line: Google's decision to finally talk openly about its
plan to return to China looks smart though slightly late, by
explaining the desperate need for alternatives in the massive
though tightly controlled search market.

After staying mum on the subject for quite some time, Google
(Nasdaq: GOOG) is finally speaking out on its controversial
decision to return to the China search market. Its CEO Sundar
Pichai broke the company's silence on the matter at an event this
week sponsored by Wired magazine, going on the offensive to try and
defend his company's decision.</......

Bottom line: A Bloomberg report on Chinese government spying
microchips in hardware used by Apple, Amazon and others may be
flawed, but highlights the potential for such spying due to China's
important place in the global supply chain.

As I return to blogging after a couple weeks absence, I wanted
to weigh in on an explosive story that ran last week in Bloomberg
about tiny spying chips that had been secretly loaded by China's
military onto globally used motherboards. Quite a bit has happened
since the original story's publication (English article), which
said that tiny c......

Bottom line: The collapse of Dangdang's $1.2
billion sale of itself to HNA shows the deal was most likely fueled
by backdoor connections with no grounding in financial reality, and
the company will probably be sold ultimately at a much lower
price.

It's Friday and I'm quite looking forward to
the weekend, so I thought I'd indulge myself with a more gossipy
post on the latest troubles of e-commerce has-been Dangdang. Anyone
looking for good stock tips with this one will probably be somewhat
disappointed, since Dangdang was one ......

Bottom line: Big volatility for first-week
trading debuts of Nio and Qutoutiao point to problems with pricing
and investor indecision in the current market, and could point to
more rocky debuts for at least the next few weeks.

When I previously wrote about low expectation
for an IPO last week by new energy startup Nio (NYSE: NIO), I
wasn't all that surprised when the company notched a more upbeat
New York debut with a 5 percent gain on its first trading day.
After all, the company had been so beaten down during the IPO
process that this ......

Bottom line: Nio stock is likely to give back
most of its huge second day gains over the next couple of weeks,
while Meituan-Dianping could debut strongly but will likely
stagnate for its first two years as a public company.

It seems that perhaps I was a bit premature
earlier this week when I wrote the latest listing by electric
vehicle (EV) maker Nio showed investors had lost appetite for
money-losing Chinese tech firms. Nio's stock has actually done
quite well in its first two trading days, after a tepid pre-debut
reception. And now we......

Bottom line: Nio's shares are likely to debut
flat to down slightly in a lackluster New York trading debut,
capping an IPO process pockmarked by investor skepticism.

Wall Street investors will get a taste of a
new flavor of Chinese company very soon, when homegrown electric
vehicle maker Nio makes its trading debut on Wednesday. But based
on all the signals so far, this offering for a company that some
have likened to China's answer to Tesla (Nasdaq: TSLA) could be a
major flop. That would be somewhat appropriate given all of the
real Tesl......

Bottom line: Meituan-Dianping's IPO is likely to meet with
lukewarm reception due to its big losses in several key areas, but
could become more attractive over the medium term as it emerges as
industry leader in one or two key areas.

As the rest of China continues to fixate on the sex scandal
surrounding e-commerce giant JD.com's (Nasdaq: JD) CEO, I thought I
would end the week on a less controversial subject with a look at
another blockbuster IPO by online-to-offline services giant
Meituan-Dianping. The company has officially filed to make a
listing ......

Bottom line: The detention of JD.com's CEO on sexual misconduct
allegations makes for good headline fodder, but is unlikely to have
any extra impact on the company's stock that is already under
pressure.

The Chinese media have been buzzing all weekend over reports
that e-commerce giant JD.com's founder and CEO Richard Liu was
detained by police in the U.S. over sex-based allegations. The
story certainly does make for titillating headlines, and will
certainly come as a slight embarrassment to JD if and when the
company and Liu ever fess up to anything inappropriate.

Bottom line: An internal petition calling on Google to be more
transparent about its plans to return to China represents the first
major backlash to the move, but is unlikely to dissuade the company
from going ahead.

When the news first broke a couple of weeks ago that Google
(Nasdaq: GOOG) was planning a return to China's search market, many
predicted that western sources would be quick to criticize the
plan, even though few voices have actually spoken out so far. Fast
forward a couple of weeks, when we are hearing the first sounds of
what's likely to become a sea of protes......

Bottom line: Tencent's sudden pulling of a popular game just
days after its release shows no one is exempt from Beijing's recent
online entertainment clampdown, which could weigh on stocks of
related company for the next few months.

A new statement from leading online game operator Tencent (HKEx:
700) is dripping with contrition, following the sudden yanking of a
new hit game from its platform that apparently didn't pass muster
with the regulator. This latest Tencent news, combined with some
downbeat earnings from live broadcasting specialist Huya (Nasdaq:
HUYA) and its ......

Bottom line: Lackluster debuts for two of this year's largest
China IPOs in Hong Kong points to a cresting of the current new
listing wave, with sentiment starting to wane as investor appetite
for new choices gets satisfied.

Two of the year's biggest China IPOs have formally launched in
Hong Kong this week, each with a different story and accompanying
moral to tell. The larger of those, and the world's largest IPO in
the last two years, has seen state-run cellular tower operator
China Tower (HKEx: 0788) raise nearly $8 billion, while the second
has seen biotech firm BeiG......